Futurelab Day

The Ars Electronica Futurelab is the think-and-do tank of the Ars Electronica, developing new concepts for an autonomous future society in an inspiring field of tension between disciplines and transnational cooperation, all the while placing humans at the center of its research. Thursday’s extensive all-day program, based on the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s work, is aimed at people who want to explore and actively shape the future. With many crises at hand, Futurelab Day explores how creativity, art and technology support society to through crises and aid in overcoming challenges in order to actively create a positive future together.

Morning Inspirations

In the Morning Inspirations Session, members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, its partners and the artistic community will discuss “Creative Resilience for a Planet B” together with the audience: How can creativity, art and technology support society in the face of many crises? How can resilience be transformed from a personal responsibility into a social phenomenon? Be inspired and discuss with us how creativity can help to overcome challenges and shape a positive future together!

Afternoon Experiences

With the Afternoon Experiences , the Futurelab Day later offers a free space the own experiment and self-experience with the latest future perspectives and innovations: Set out on a Guided Tour into the future or let keynotes, panel discussions, workshops and symposia lead you not only into the Future of Media , mobility and work, but also into that of humanity, and much more. Get your Survival Guide for the Future and discover how human body signals are becoming a new form of ink as an audio-visual expression of creative resilience in the brand new Life Ink exhibition. Or let us take you on a thought experiment into finitude to develop a new relationship to the future with the workshop Re-writing the Script.

Night Performances

Composed of a concentrated load of data, creativity and innovation, the Night Performances in Deep Space 8K on the evening of Futurelab Day will provide even more creative impulses as valuable resources for the newly awakening collective resilience with stunning visuals and data-driven performances. Between immersive visuals and electric noise from the rendering engines of artists and deep neural networks, Futurelab Day is approaching its zenith with a veritable fireworks of creativity. Curious? – Perfect, secure your ticket and just come by!

Program and schedule are subject to change. Please check for updates.

Program

Bio Ink Experience Workshop

Wacom Co., Ltd., Yoko Shimizu (JP)

In the Bio Ink workshop, visitors draw and write with microorganisms: living ink! The data from Wacom pens and tablets is digitally extracted while the artworks morph into beautiful patterns in a new ecosystem of creativity.

CoBot Studio – Research Insights into Human Robot Collaboration

Martina Mara (AT), Brigitte Krenn (AT), Roland Haring (AT), Peter Holzkorn (AT), Kathrin Meyer (DE)

How to communicate with robot colleagues, increase acceptance for them and create a safe work environment? With the “CoBot Studio” research program, the LIT Robopsychology Lab of the JKU Linz, the Ars Electronica Futurelab and five other partners have been working on these and more questions for years now.

Morning Inspirations: Creative Resilience for a Planet B

Sigrid Bürstmayr (AT), Rashin Fahandej (US/IR), Adrian van Hooydonk (NL), Yuima Nakazato (JP), Jung Hsu (TW) & Natalia Rivera (CO), Marcus Neustetter (ZA), Tom Lamberty (DE)

In the Morning Inspirations Session, members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, its partners and the artistic community will discuss “Creative Resilience for a Planet B” together with the audience: How can creativity, art and technology support society in the face of many crises? How can resilience be transformed from a personal responsibility into a social phenomenon?

Dataspace: Global impacts of the Russian war on Ukraine

Nikkei Innovation Lab (JP), Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)

Dataspace proposes a “newspaper of the future”: Here, the Ars Electronica Futurelab and financial newspaper Nikkei’s Innovation Lab demonstrate, how art and journalism can help to listen carefully to facts and think deeply rather than just consuming and reacting to news.

Digital Theatre — Democratization of a Medium

Blair Stevenson (FI), Heidi Wiley (DE), Mikael Fock (DK), Michael Eickhoff (DE), Paulien Geerlings (NL), Vanessa Hannesschläger (AT), Alex Verhaest (BE), Taavet Jansen (EE), Airan Berg (AT)

In diesem Panel gehen wir der Frage nach, wie eine neue Art der Annäherung an das Publikum die (digitale) Theaterszene Europas und darüber hinaus in den kommenden Jahren formen wird. Ein neues Verständnis der Konzepte von und Beziehungen zwischen Theater, Publikum, Performance und Raum ist das, was die digitale Transformation des Mediums Theater ausmacht.

Earth4All – A Survival Guide for Humanity

Friedrich Hinterberger (AT), Jayati Ghosh (IN), Astrid Rössler (AT), Maria Langsenlehner (AT)

Seeking to operationalize systems change, the Earth4All project developed 5 pathways that steer humanity away from ecological and social catastrophe.

Keynote by Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (DE)

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (DE) with opening words by Till Kellerhoff (DE)

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker will speak on the new report to Club of Rome: a survival guide to help steer humanity away from ecological and social catastrophe.

Futurelab Guided Tour

Ars Electronca Futurelab Researcher/Artist

Members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab invite you to embark on a tour through their visions and ideas for the future, which are distributed throughout the Ars Electronica Center.

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Life Ink Exhibition

Wacom Co., Ltd. (JP); Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)

In the Life Ink exhibition, the Ars Electronica Futurelab presents wearable gear for the real-time visualization of brainwave and body signals as digital brush strokes, called Life Ink. The project explores the inner mechanism of creativity in our brain and body to develop a new form of ink. Life Ink is part of the lab’s Future Ink research project with Wacom, with workshops and demonstrations on Space Ink, Bio Ink and Life Ink throughout the Festival.

Humanity of the Future

Hideaki Ogawa (JP/AT), Guy Ben-Ary (AU), Kasia Chmielinski (US), Hiroshi Ishiguro (JP), Akane Kikuchi (JP), Martina Mara (AT), Sarah Newman (US), Nathan John Thompson (AU)

Observing the possibilities presented by life science, brain science, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and robotics, we can see the essence of our sense of life and hints of a new humanity. In this century and the next, what kind of technosphere will we live in?

Media of the Future

Nicolas Naveau (FR/AT), Rashin Fahandej (US/IR), Sarah Kriesche (AT), Oishi Nobuyuki (JP), Joanna Wright (GB), Takeshi Yamada (JP)

In this age of visual information inundated with text and images, what are new methods and media for thinking deeply about facts and issues rather than simply consuming and reacting to news? The “Media of the Future” session will focus on Artistic Journalism.

Mobility of the Future Workshop

Supersense x BMW Experience Lab Project, Bernhard Böhm (AT), Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)

The focus is on the question of mobility experiences on planet B. On September 8 and 9, visitors are invited to the workshop “Mobility of the Future” with sociologist Bernhard Böhm (AT) to exchange ideas and develop visions.

Ars Electronica Futurelab: Night Performances

To bring the Futurelab Day on Thursday to a fitting close, in the evening the Ars Electronica Futurelab invites everyone to join the Night Performances: Visitors can enjoy a wide range of experiences — from the lab’s latest work to fascinating art performances, including world-class piano and dance with stunning visuals in the unique setting of Deep Space 8K, a giant immersive environment developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab.

Re-Writing the Script Workshop

Denise Hirtenfelder (AT)

The end is a frightening phenomenon for humankind, but our relationship to it has changed. The global North lives in a society of endless opportunities, yet we are stuck in a culture of impermance. The workshop “Re-Writing the Script – A New Relationship to Finitude” urges us to look back at our present as if it was already history.

Revivification Workshop

Nathan Thompson (AU), Guy Ben-Ary (AU), Yoko Shimizu (JP)

In-Vitro Intelligence (IVI) suggests an intelligent, bioengineered system harbouring living neural networks that function as brains outside of the body. The workshop hosts believe it is inevitable that IVI driven entities will grow more sophisticated and find widespread use in, for instance, their IVI driven “Surrogate Performers”.

Space Ink Experience Workshop

Wacom Co., Ltd., Ars Electronica Futurelab (AT)

In the Space Ink workshop, visitors can draw with light: Using Wacom pens and tablets, you control luminescent drones to draw in three-dimensional space via the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s operating system SwarmOS.

The NeuroRight Arcades

Roel Heremans and his team are designing a series of five interactive installations to make each NeuroRight tangible for participants. They want participants to explore unasked questions about the future of our NeuroRights in a world where BCIs are ubiquitous.

Work of the Future

Horst Hörtner (AT), Gianpaolo Barozzi (IT), Victoria Čaić (DE/AT), Mary Lizabeth Lu (PH), Marcus Neustetter (ZA/AT)

What could “work” on a planet B look like? What needs to be done to initiate a change in the desired direction? The session starts with an inspiration shower to spread the creative sparks of different perspectives.